Taking punk to the masses

Taking Punk to the Masses: From Nowhere to Nevermind visually documents the explosion of Grunge, the Seattle Sound, within the context of the underground punk subculture that was developing throughout the U.S. in the late 1970s and 1980s. This musical journey is represented entirely through the collection of Experience Music Project, Seattle’s museum of music and popular culture, pulling from a permanent archive of over 800 filmed oral history interviews and 140,000 artifacts – instruments, costumes, posters, records and other ephemera – dedicated to the pursuit of rock ’n’ roll.

Tracing a lineage from “Louie Louie” to the rise of Grunge with Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Mudhoney, Taking Punk to the Masses is the first visual history of one of America’s most vibrant music scenes, as told by its participants and seen through the surviving artifacts.